


And Now My Heart Stumbles (On Things I Don't Know)

by minyardmonster



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28211613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minyardmonster/pseuds/minyardmonster
Summary: It had been a long while since Neil had had an identity crisis as severe as this one. It’s not that he doesn’t know who he is, but that he doesn’t know how to be who he is. He’s been Neil Josten for years now, will (hopefully) continue to be Neil Josten for years to come, but he’s not exactly sure he knows who Neil Josten is. He’s tempted to make a mental list of things he likes, but a good portion of him is afraid the list will start and end with Andrew and Exy.-this is my half of the aftg fic exchange. one of the prompts given to me was Angst but MUST have a happy ending-and anyone who has read my fics before knows full well that is all that I write so enjoy!
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 4
Kudos: 87





	And Now My Heart Stumbles (On Things I Don't Know)

It had been a long while since Neil had had an identity crisis as severe as this one. It’s not that he doesn’t know  _ who  _ he is, but that he doesn’t know  _ how  _ to be who he is. He’s been Neil Josten for years now, will (hopefully) continue to be Neil Josten for years to come, but he’s not exactly sure he knows who Neil Josten  _ is _ . He’s tempted to make a mental list of things he likes, but a good portion of him is afraid the list will start and end with Andrew and Exy. 

Andrew and Exy. He’s only got one of those things, as it is. Well, that’s not entirely true, and Neil chides himself for being so needlessly dramatic. Andrews been finished at PSU for quite some time now, signed and playing professional Exy for the Boston Badgers while Neil stayed behind to captain the Foxes for one last year. Though, they’re not really the Foxes, not to him at least. They’re not his family, who are now scattered across the country living their respective lives, leaving Neil in standstill. 

He does find it almost comical, though, that who he sees most frequently is Aaron, who had graduated alongside Andrew and Kevin and successfully made it into med school, but was now only an hour away. Neil finds himself on Aaron and Katelyn’s couch more often than not, these days. 

He’s not heard from Andrew in a few days now, which isn’t necessarily uncommon. Neither of them are prone to frequent texting, but Neil almost feels like Andrew should just  _ know  _ how he’s feeling, even if he’s all the way in Boston. It’s ridiculous and unreasonable, but it’s how he feels. 

“You’re not going to will him to text you by staring angrily at your phone, trust me on that one.” Aaron’s bored voice from the kitchen island breaks Neil’s train of thought. Aaron’s right, of course, something that was becoming infuriatingly common. 

He shuffles into a sitting position when Aaron and Katelyn come over, the latter throwing a pint of strawberries at him to snack on while they watch TV (Neil silently adds that to the list of things he enjoys.  _ Fruit. Strawberries.)  _ The couch is small, and Aaron is thigh to thigh with Katelyn, but he makes a conscious effort to keep from touching Neil. The action almost makes him smile. 

“Just send him a text saying you miss him, I’m sure it’ll make him smile.” Katelyn says, as if she’d ever seen Andrew smile in her life. Aaron gives her a look, probably thinking the same thing, but she just shrugs in response and buries into his side. Something heavy settles in Neil’s stomach at the sight of them, and he unlocks his phone again, the last text thread between him and Andrew staring back at him. 

He punches out a quick  _ I miss you :(  _ before locking his phone and shoving it into his pocket, and doing his best not to think about it while he watches the movie on screen. Andrew has not answered him by the time the movie finishes, and he hasn’t answered by the time Neil gets back to his dorm, and he has not answered when Neil wakes up the next morning for his run. Neil feels guilty for the anger that spikes in his chest, it’s not as if Andrew is purposefully ignoring him. The blonde texts like he speaks, only Neil has no way of  _ reading  _ him when it’s digital like this.

Instead he leaves his phone behind and runs and runs and runs until the feeling settles, and the heat from the rising sun becomes too much. (He adds  _ running  _ to the Neil Josten list, but quickly replaces it with  _ jogging _ because he never wants to run again.) When he gets back to the dorm, sweating and panting for breath he finds Andrew waiting for him, sprawled out across his bed as if he belongs there, reading his old and battered copy of  _ The Princess Bride _ . He’s dressed in his usual all black attire, but his boots are kicked off and his feet are crossed at the ankles, but it does nothing to hide the fox printed socks he’s wearing-a gift from Neil. 

“You stink, go shower.” Andrew makes a point of not looking up from his book, reading glasses slipping down his nose, but Neil does not miss the underlying message in his actions. It’s a fourteen hour drive from Boston to South Carolina, and Neil smiles to himself under the hot spray of the shower. Andrew’s  _ I miss you too  _ could not have been louder in the silence of that room. 

-

“When do you have to go back?” Neil asked from where he’s laying in Andrew’s lap. His feet are kicked up over the end of the couch and his head is perched happily on his thighs-andrew’s fingers gently playing with his hair. (He adds  _ Andrew touching me _ to the Neil Josten list) He doesn;t want Andrew to leave again, already he feels whole and relaxed after being with him for just several hours. Like being Neil Josten evolves from being a concept to an actualisation when they’re together.

“Sunday night,” Andrew grunts, sounding bored. “Mandatory practise.” His hand stills in Neil’s hair and it’s clear he’s thinking something over, trying to decide if it’s worth saying out loud. Neil looks up at him expectedly. “You will be fine.” He gives Neil’s hair a quick tug, before shooing him off his lap so he can use the bathroom. He says it with such finality Neil feels like he has very little choice but to believe him. 

Neil folds himself into the corner of the couch while he waits for Andrew to return and reminds himself that he is a survivor and he has faced much worse than a long distance relationship with a man who was allergic to his phone. He exhales, Andrew is right, he will be fine. He has a team to get in order before semi finals, and several final essays he’s been putting off-even if he  _ isn’t  _ fine he’ll have enough of a distraction to get him by until graduation.

-

He misses Andrew most at the banquet. The rest of his team have brought dates along with them, and they’re all dressed up nicely and dancing alongside one another. There’s less and less tension in the air with each year that passes since the Ravens disbanded as a team, but Neil just feels lonely without Andrew there to poke fun of people with. He kicks his feet up on an abandoned seat and yanks his phone out of the pocket of his slacks and texts Andrew in quick succession.

**Neil**

_ It’s so boring  _

_ I don't even know what to do at these without you _

_ Even Robin has a girlfriend now _

_ I think they’re out dancing  _

He locks his phone and places his phone on the table, bouncing his leg in a way that is  _ definitely  _ not impatient at all. Andrew texts him back twenty minutes later.

**Andrew**

_ And what, pray tell, do you want me to do about that? _

Neil doesn’t have a response to that, like he’s sure Andrew had expected and sighs to himself. He looks around at the people he’s been playing Exy against the whole year and strikes  _ conversationalist  _ from the list of possible things Neil Josten could be. In the end he does get up to stand by Wymack’s side in a silence that is uncomfortable for both of them. He misses Andrew like a lung. 

Later, on the bus back to Palmetto Neil gets another text from Andrew telling him to call when he gets back to the dorm, and it’s like breathing in air again for the first time after drowning. Robin laughs at him the whole ride home when she works out why he can’t stop smiling but it’s worth it when he’s on the phone with Andrew later, and he feels slotted together.

“I don’t always feel right, without you here.” Neil admits. He’s curled around a pillow on his top bunk, the three other boys he shares the room with now out in the common space. They know better than to be in the room with their captain if he’s on the phone with Andrew.

Andrew hums from the otherside of the line, and Neil can imagine exactly how he is right now; Laid back on his black linen with his feet crossed at the ankles, one arm behind his head and face kept neutral despite being safe from any and all onlookers. It makes Neil’s heart hurt, a little, that he doesn’t get to see it in person.

“You are your own person.” Andrew says, finally. “Neil Josten exists now and forever.” The way he says it makes it fact, but Neil is still worried he’s not really getting the point.

Neil shakes his head, even though he knows Andrew can’t see. “No but, I wasn’t really Neil Josten until, well, after.” he can’t make himself say  _ Baltimore,  _ isn’t sure he’ll ever be able too. “You helped make him-make  _ me  _ real. You’re a vital piece of me.”

Andrew doesn’t say anything for a long time, and Neil finds it hard to find comfort in the phone static that crackles between them interrupted only by Andrew’s breathing. 

“Don’t be stupid.” He says, and hangs up. 

Neil sighs heavily. There’s only one semester left, two games if the Foxes are lucky, and then he’ll be able to see Andrew again. He wonders if he also feels the same chill in his bones when they’re apart. Like a winter has set in that’s never going to break into a spring. Eventually he falls asleep, and while he doesn’t have any nightmares he doesn’t dream of much else, either.

-

The next time Neil gets to see Andrew in person it’s at one of his games. He’s playing the second half, and stands in the goal looking bored in the same way he always did back when he played alongside Neil. He looks good in the blue and white of the Badgers uniform, a large 6 sprawled across his chest. Neil sits in the stands, buzzing with excitement and pretends he doesn’t notice when Andrew scans the crowd for him. Andrew always plays better when Neil is there to watch him, though he’d never admit it, and the game ends 10-2 in the badgers favour. 

He doesn’t get to see Andrew afterwards, he’s whisked away for after game PR and Neil has to catch the last bus back so he has time to study before his last exam for the year, his last exam ever. It’s a little disappointing and his skin feels sticky and itchy from watching Andrew play and not getting to  _ touch.  _ He sits on the bus back to Palmetto with his head jostling against the window and adds  _ touch  _ to the Neil josten list, thinks on it, and quickly amends with  _ Andrew’s touch.  _ He knows Andrew had insisted he find things outside of himself to build himself around, but he’s not sure he minds all that much, really, that he feels most like himself when with Andrew.

Neil had gotten to be anyone he wanted to be after Baltimore, and he had chosen to be Neil Josten.

Neil Josten alongside Andrew Minyard, and he was going to hold onto the bullet point of the Neil Josten list for as long as he could manage. 

-

In the end, Neil graduates from Palemetto and suddenly it feels like time has passed by far too quickly. Suddenly he’s lived many more years then he ever thought would be allowed of him. He’s not signed onto the Boston Badgers alongside Andrew, but he is picked up by  Massachusetts’s team (much to Kevin’s displeasure) and that means he’s close enough to Andrew that they’re able to see each other whenever they please, whenever they  _ need  _ to

Neil still misses Andrew on nights when they can’t curl into one another, but now that he’s not bogged down by school work and captaincy he has an easier time getting around to see the Foxes when they ask for him. Still, he feels he will only ever truly be Neil Josten when he is by Andrew, and that, he thinks, is perfectly fine with him. 

They both have their own apartments, but Neil’s adopted two cats so Andrew spends most of his time at Neil’s, the two of them curled around each other, tending to one anothers Exy related injuries while the cats sleep soundly on their legs. 

It’s the last thing he adds to his Neil Josten list, content and confident in who he is, because who he is is whoever gets to stay by Andrew’s side.


End file.
